tain the old cumbrous,
complicated, and expensive form of government. A national executive and
Congress will be sufficiently burdensome to the people without the
additional expense of governors, lieutenant-governors, a dozen
secretaries of State, as many legislatures, etc. etc. It is true, State
rights gave the States the right to secede. But what is in a name?
Secession by any other name would smell as sweet. For my part, I like
the name of Revolution, or even Rebellion, better, for they are
sanctified by the example of Washington and his compeers. And
separations of communities are like the separations of bees when they
cannot live in peace in the same hive. The time had come apparently for
us to set up for ourselves, and we should have done it if there had been
no such thing as State sovereignty. It is true, the Constitution adopted
at Montgomery virtually acknowledges the right of any State to secede
from the Confederacy; but that was necessary in vindication of the
action of its fathers. That Constitution, and the _permanent_ one to
succeed it, will, perhaps, never do. They too much resemble the
governmental organization of the Yankees, to whom we have bid adieu
forever in disgust.

APRIL 19TH.--Dispatches from Montgomery indicate that President Davis is
as firm a States right man as any other, perfectly content to bear the
burdens of government six years, and hence I apprehend he will not budge
in the business of guarding Virginia until after the ratification of the
secession ordinance. Thus a month's precious time will be lost; and the
scene of conflict, instead of being in Pennsylvania, near Philadelphia,
will be in Virginia. From the ardor of the volunteers already beginning
to pour into the city, I believe 25,000 men could be collected and armed
in a week, and in another they might sweep the whole Abolition concern
beyond the Susquehanna, and afterward easily keep them there. But this
will not be attempted, nor permitted, by the Convention, so recently
composed mostly of Union men.

To-night we have rumors of a collision in Baltimore. A regiment of
Northern troops has been assailed by the mob. No good can come of mob
assaults in a great revolution.

Wrote my wife to make preparations with all expedition to escape into
Virginia. Women and children will not be molested for some weeks yet;
but I see they have begun to ransack their baggage. Mrs. Semple,
daughter of President Tyler, I am informed, had her plate